Secure random token in Node.js

javascript node.js base64 securestring
Hubert OG picture Hubert OG · Jan 13, 2012 · Viewed 197.5k times · Source

In this question Erik needs to generate a secure random token in Node.js. There's the method crypto.randomBytes that generates a random Buffer. However, the base64 encoding in node is not url-safe, it includes / and + instead of - and _. Therefore, the easiest way to generate such token I've found is

require('crypto').randomBytes(48, function(ex, buf) {
    token = buf.toString('base64').replace(/\//g,'_').replace(/\+/g,'-');
});

Is there a more elegant way?

Answer

thejh picture thejh · Jan 13, 2012

Try crypto.randomBytes():

require('crypto').randomBytes(48, function(err, buffer) {
  var token = buffer.toString('hex');
});

The 'hex' encoding works in node v0.6.x or newer.

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